i pointed that out earlier this week. also the fact that the road games we do have left are against the Giants who look horrible, the Falcons who look beatable, and the Niners, that we've beaten soundly twice in a row even if those games were at home - they were far more dominating than simple home field advantage.

Hawknballs wrote:i pointed that out earlier this week. also the fact that the road games we do have left are against the Giants who look horrible, the Falcons who look beatable, and the Niners, that we've beaten soundly twice in a row even if those games were at home - they were far more dominating than simple home field advantage.

Probably the 3 games I'm most worried about are the Saints, Falcons and the 49'ers. The 49'ers have been steamrolled the last couple of times, but they did stifle the Hawks in their home game. That said, during that game if the wr's and hb's would have caught 2-3 more balls it could have easily been a hawks win, even with the way the 49'ers ran on them. I do believe that the Falcons game will be some small measure of payback for the playoff loss and the Saints game I think is the only game i'm really worried about

Jimmy Johnson pointed out that with the 2 road wins, he says we'll put up a minimum of 10 wins now by his count. This Texans game I knew was going to be real tough and I just didn't have confidence in our offense against this good of a defense, especially with 3 starting linemen out.

I seriously don't see us losing another game this year now unless we beat ourselves.

The defense can't keep bailing us out, at some point this offense has to start sustaining drives and be the powerhouse it was during the 2nd half of the season it was last year

I see the bailing out today, as the D bailing itself out. They were completely dominated in the first half. I know the O was too, but they had to expect it with the line they were going into war with and against.

Don't sleep on the Saints defensive line. The play of their youngsters is the biggest difference for them so far this year and they have 39 hurries already. The Cards belong on that list as well if you are going to include the Rams.

Of the six remaining, three are one time or less zone away. Our chances of going over .500 on the road this season have improved markedly. Assuming we hold serve at home, we're looking at very possibly being the #1 seed come January. There's a lot of football to play, but we have sure shown some remarkable resilience so far. It's a great time to be a Seahawks fan.

Talent can get you to the playoffs.It takes character to win when you get there.SUPER BOWL XLVIII CHAMPIONS

The defense can't keep bailing us out, at some point this offense has to start sustaining drives and be the powerhouse it was during the 2nd half of the season it was last year

I see the bailing out today, as the D bailing itself out. They were completely dominated in the first half. I know the O was too, but they had to expect it with the line they were going into war with and against.

they had a graphic up at some point, and it had the first like 7 drives or so, and they were all below about 5 or 6 plays all leading to punts except for the one FG and the fumble. its incredibly tough for a defense to continually stand up on short fields like that. putting a lot of hope into percy being a huge difference, and a healthy o-line will help, but offense is still a problem outside of beast, and its hard to see that changing any time soon. russell constantly appeared to have nothing to throw to, leading to a lot of pressure - the o-line cant hold them forever, but its a bit of both. was great to get this win, was very very impressive. id be concerned about the colts next week though. they dont look anywhere near as bad as i thought they would be heading into the season. itll take another amazing effort like the one today to get the win.Irvin coming back should hopefully help, and we can hope that max and breno arent hurt too badly and can come straight back, but it wont be easy.

The defense can't keep bailing us out, at some point this offense has to start sustaining drives and be the powerhouse it was during the 2nd half of the season it was last year

I see the bailing out today, as the D bailing itself out. They were completely dominated in the first half. I know the O was too, but they had to expect it with the line they were going into war with and against.

they had a graphic up at some point, and it had the first like 7 drives or so, and they were all below about 5 or 6 plays all leading to punts except for the one FG and the fumble. its incredibly tough for a defense to continually stand up on short fields like that. putting a lot of hope into percy being a huge difference, and a healthy o-line will help, but offense is still a problem outside of beast, and its hard to see that changing any time soon. russell constantly appeared to have nothing to throw to, leading to a lot of pressure - the o-line cant hold them forever, but its a bit of both. was great to get this win, was very very impressive. id be concerned about the colts next week though. they dont look anywhere near as bad as i thought they would be heading into the season. itll take another amazing effort like the one today to get the win.Irvin coming back should hopefully help, and we can hope that max and breno arent hurt too badly and can come straight back, but it wont be easy.

But thanks to the fact that Ryan has a BOOT, we weren't facing short fields on any regular basis, in fact, the two TD drives by the Texans were 90 and 80 yards, the two field goals came from the shortened fields of the fumble and int.

Personally (feel free to shut me down here), I think our defense copes extremely well with shortened fields, we're built to defend the red-zone, something we do very well, but at the end of a 10-15 play 80 yard drive, they start getting a little bit gassed and are slightly more likely to miss an assignment in the redzone and give up TDs, when the O starts at our 30 yard line we always seem to hold steady and only give up the FG

themunn wrote:Personally (feel free to shut me down here), I think our defense copes extremely well with shortened fields, we're built to defend the red-zone, something we do very well, but at the end of a 10-15 play 80 yard drive, they start getting a little bit gassed and are slightly more likely to miss an assignment in the redzone and give up TDs, when the O starts at our 30 yard line we always seem to hold steady and only give up the FG

I do agree that red zone defense is rightly an emphasis. I think any "bend without breaking" philosophy favors the longer fields, though, because it increases the offensive plays and the chance that the offense will make a mistake.

Consider a conservative defense that gives up a 2-5 yard pass/run most of the time, but forces an error or a turnover some of the time. Given a short field the offense will likely put up points, but as the number of plays increases so does the chance of a mistake/turnover. The offense may get 4 yards on first down, 4 yards on second down, but then have a drop in the flat on third down and suddenly be forced to punt. With a long enough field the defense would still give up a lot of yards but very few points, and defensively this is what we have seen from Pete's defense the last few years.

What we need to remember when considering our offensive woes is that we've been facing some very tough defenses three of those first four games. They are out of the way now and our offense should start looking much better. FO has us ranked 5th and they haven't been making defensive adjustments yet either. We've put up 29 on SF, 23 on Houston. Granted, we actually put up 16 on Houston, but that was pretty much what we expected.

The defense can't keep bailing us out, at some point this offense has to start sustaining drives and be the powerhouse it was during the 2nd half of the season it was last year

YES YES YES! Thank you. I literally expended half an hour attempting to get this point accross in another thread. The offense, and especially the oline, must come through. They have been sub-par by their standards.

mikeak wrote:Glad nobody is concerned about Indy. Not like they just beat SF and we are playing them at 10am...

I am somewhat nervous about that game, but not really as nervous as for the Saints game, the 49'ers game at candlestick and the Falcon's game if they get back to their regular form.

The way I look at it is this. even though they are different teams, the defense this week will not be nearly as good as the Texans defense. Luck has been playing well, but I don't think they have as good of an offense as the Texans, even if Shaub is holding them back a lot this year. When he is on, he is on. I think the Hawks D will play more like we are used to this next game for the whole game and not just for a half. If we are missing Breno and Unger again I will be more worried, but for a 7th rounder pick with his first start and it being against Watts..Bowie could have done much worse. I mean he already played opposite probably the best d-lineman in football right now, and while I know other defenders will present different challenges the overall level of competition he will face if he is the starter again will not be near to that level where he has that complete of a player opposite of him. I think that the Hawks are going to continue to take some lumps, but they will be battling every minute/second of every game...they don't call in anything no matter how well or bad a game is going.

AgentDib wrote:Don't sleep on the Saints defensive line. The play of their youngsters is the biggest difference for them so far this year and they have 39 hurries already. The Cards belong on that list as well if you are going to include the Rams.